Engine Missing Problem Solved

Well, I decided to add a couple more posts to the blog.  This one revolves around the engine missing problem that started in Anchorage, Alaska and continued ALL the way home.  Four thousand miles of engine missing every day for the first part of each days ride.  The amount of missing varied from around twenty miles of missing and then the bike would run super fine for the rest of the day, all the way up to over one hundred and ten miles of missing and then it ran super fine until we stopped for lunch the last day. 

I am now convinced that the problem has been water in the tank.  If you read my blogs you know that in Anchorage, I had to replace the fuel filter on the bike because it was clogged and not working properly.  That replacement was brought about by the amount of bad gas that I had put in the bike all the way back to my trip to Alaska last year in 2008. 

I replaced the filter just before leaving for Alaska in June of 2008 and I left that one in there when I left for Alaska this year.  Evidently, I got a lot of bad gas last year in Alaska and I must have gotten even more bad gas this year and the filter finally gave up the ghost after about 15,000 miles of travel. 

Anyway, after I replaced the filter in Anchorage this year, the bike ran like a new bike for one day.  Until the bike went over on its right side in the Whittier tunnel. 

The gas tank on a BMW R1150GS is sort of like a saddle.  One part of the tank is on the right side of the frame (and that’s where the gas “pickup” is) and the other part of the tank is on the left side of the frame.  There is a certain amount of “liquid” (either gas or water or other stuff) that stays on the left side unless the bike is leaned WAY over to the right side. 

I believe the tip over on the right side caused all of that “trapped” liquid to spill over to the right side of the tank where the gas pickup is and started the missing problem. 

The engine wasn’t getting enough water to actually make the bike not start but only enough to make it run very badly.  Then, as I went down the highway, less and less water was being picked up with the gas and the bike would run better and better until there was no water being picked up and then it would run fine for the rest of the day. 

What I cannot explain is why the process would start over each day.  I would think if the engine were burning some of the water out each day, that after a few days the bike should run fine but it didn’t.  Each day the problem would start over and run badly until a certain amount of gas/water went through the engine and then it would run fine until the next day. 

This missing problem started on the 17th of June in Anchorage and continued until we arrived back home on the 29th of June. 

The BMW mechanic in Anchorage wouldn’t have been able to see anything on his computer because the computer wouldn’t show what was being burned in the cylinder.  He was looking for some kind of malfunction with the engine and the problem was actually with the quality of the gas that was being run through the engine. 

Even given that, he should have been able to call someone in BMW and ask them about the symptoms and they probably would have told him to drain the tank and put new gas in it. 

Therefore, I am now getting a business card and my title is going to be “Master BMW Motorcycle Mechanic”.  Since he wasn’t able to cure my bikes problem and I was, ergo, I am smarter than he is and worthy of having the true title of Master Mechanic and he should be sent to Germany for a two year refresher course in maintaining BMWs GS bikes.  AND, he should be paid minimum wage while he is in the course and he should have to ride a moped to work each day. 

I should have my tire back on the bike in the next day or two and then I’ll be doing more test rides. 

The Adventure model of the BMW GS bike has an eight gallon tank on it while mine has a five gallon tank.  On the GSA, the tank actually has a hose that connects the bottom of the two parts of the tank so there can be no “trapped” fuel on the left side of the tank.  I’m thinking I may do a modification on my bike so it is like the GSA model. 

Since I’m going to have to take the tank off the bike to empty it, I’m going to have someone weld fuel fittings on the bottom of each side of it so I can connect them together with a piece of fuel line so I don’t ever have this problem again.  Plus, if I get water in the tank in the future, it will be simply to disconnect the hose and drain both sides of the tank completely without having to remove the tank to drain it. 

More info as I get into the testing more.

Day 25 Sloan, Iowa to HOME ! ! ! ! ! 529 Miles

Today was another warm day.  I wasn’t sure we would be able to make it home due to the heat.  We talked about maybe getting a room in Kansas City depending on the temperature when we got there.  It all depends on how Lyle feels when we get to Kansas City.  I grew up in the jungles of Florida so I can ride in any temperature (high temperature, not low temperature :))

My bike was still acting up today.  It was missing really bad when I started it this morning and would barely get up to speed on the freeway.  As usual, it missed for a long time and then started running right.  This time it was missing for over 100 miles before it started running smoothly.  This could be a hard problem to fix when I get home.  It was missing a lot when we first got on the freeway and as we went down the road it would miss less and less until it totally stopped ALL missing after around 110 miles of running at freeway speeds.  After that and all the way to Kansas City, it ran like a new bike.  Weird!  The missing would become more and more intermittent, the further down the road you went.  But to still be missing slightly after 100 miles and then all of a sudden absolutely no missing what so ever. 

When we got to Kansas City we stopped in Grandview for lunch at the Wendy’s restaurant on Blue Ridge Blvd.  We were in there probably for an hour and when we came out I asked Lyle if he was ready to go on to Mountain Grove. He said he would be except his front tire was flat. 

I got out my small electric pump and we put some air in it to see if we could find the leak.  It appeared to be a bad valve stem.  As luck would have it, there was a tire shop directly next door to Wendy’s so we aired it up a little with my pump and then Lyle ran it over to the tire shop before it went flat again.  They confirmed it was the valve stem leaking and said they couldn’t fix motorcycle tires. 

But, they told us, there is a motorcycle shop just over the freeway on the other side.  We put as much air in the tire as we could and headed for the bike shop.  Evidently, the centrifugal force put on the valve stem while running at highway speeds, kept it in a position that kept air pressure in the tire.  Stopping for lunch took that pressure off the valve stem and then all the air leaked out.  As Barbara Streisand used to sing “How Lucky Can you Get”?  A tire shop next door when your tire goes flat. 

The shop was open and they could get Lyle’s bike in right away.  They quickly had the problem taken care of and handed Lyle the bill.  It was $60 just to replace the valve stem and balance the tire.  I think I’ll open a bike shop so I can get rich too.  What a rip off.  Put in a $5 part and charge $55 labor.  What a racket. 

Lyle said the heat wasn’t killing him yet so we decided to head on down the highway to Mountain Grove and home. 

Since we had been at lunch for an hour and then we sat around the bike shop for another hour, my bike decided it was cool enough to start missing again.  Even as hot as the weather was, just sitting for a while cooled the bike down enough to start missing slightly again. 

I shouldn’t say it “cooled down enough” because I don’t think the problem is “bike temperature” related.  I don’t actually have any idea what the problem is, but I don’t think it’s related to the temperature of the bike.  We’ll see. 

We made it to Mountain Grove without further incident and headed north towards our road, Girlstown Road. 

Imagine our surprise when we got to the end of the pavement on Girlstown Road only to find that the gravel road had been recently graded and new gravel dumped on it.  The gravel they dumped on it was about marble size or a little larger and it was as bad as anything we had seen in Alaska.  I’m thinking as we’re slowly making our way towards home, “here I go all the way to Alaska, ride around up there on bad gravel roads and return home to crash my bike on my own dirt road”. 

Because of the size and quantity of the gravel, my bike was skating around the road like crazy and I had to stay really focused on trying to stay upright the whole time.  They must have just done that today or the day before for it to be that bad.  It wouldn’t have been a problem at all in a car.  Unfortunately, Lyle and I are the only two motorcycle riders who live on the whole five miles of  the road. 

We made it home ok and Lyle said he wasn’t happy with our road now either.  But we did get through it.  After a day or two, the road won’t be bad for motorcycles at all.  The cars driving on it will make bare spots and push the gravel out so there will be tire tracks to follow when we’re on the bikes.  It’s just when they first do it, it is pretty hard on a bike. 

I’m going to do one more entry to the blog before I close it out.  Sort of a “lessons learned” and “what I would do different next time” kind of thing. 

I want to thank all of the readers who tracked us on our journey and I hope you enjoyed being with us through my blog. 

You can start signing up for next years trip to Tierra Del Fuego on the southern tip of South America.  Be sure and get your motorcycle ready and all tuned up as it will be a tough ride. 

Also, brush up on your espanol.  Si tu no habla espanol, es posible hay problemas (for all you spanish speaking individuals, pardona me for my spelling, etc.  :) )    I’m not sure I can do my blog in spanish ! !

Best wishes to all and ride safe. 

Harry

Day 24 Kadoka Junction, South Dakota to Sloan, Iowa 355 Miles

We finally reached the end of South Dakota after riding for weeks (well, it seemed like weeks to me) and turned south onto I29 towards Missouri. 

We stopped for the night in Sloan, Iowa again.  And Lyle wanted to go for dinner at the same place we ate when we were here last time.  I know why he wanted to go there.  Just so he could flirt with the women that he tried to talk into going to Alaska with him last time we were here. 

We were in for a surprise though.  There were at least six women working there when we got there and not one of them were the ones that were working there when we ate there before.  They must have one large pool of workers to choose from as there must have been six or eight working there last time. 

Anyway, Lyle didn’t get to see his honey that trip.  We just ate and went back to the motel.  He’ll have to wait until next year to see her again. 

Tomorrow we should be able to make it home ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Day 23 Sheridan, Wyoming to Kadoka Junction, South Dakota 335 Miles

Not much to report here.  We just stayed on the interstate and made our way to Kadoka Junction. 

I’m still riding tired.  I’m just not a “get up early in the morning” kind of guy.  I would much rather get up late and ride later but with the hot weather I’m concerned that Lyle will end up passing out if it gets too hot.  He just cannot take the hot weather. 

He probably won’t be interested in going to Tierra Del Fuego with us next year :)

Next stop is in Sloan, Iowa again.  In the Winnevegas Motel of course.  Where we stayed on the way up to Alaska. 

Day 22 Shelby, Montana to Sheridan, Wyoming 444 Miles Another Long Day for me

I haven’t mentioned it before but I’ve been riding with half a windshield. Since Anchorage!  I’ll see if I can post a picture of the bike on here before I finish the blog. 

Over the years when it was close to Sturgis Rally time, I would see a lot of Harley riders on the way to Sturgis on I70 and it always amazed me the number of riders without windshields.  I just could not imagine riding on a highway for any distance at all without a windshield.  I always thought those riders were part animal. 

Well now I’m even more amazed with what they were doing and I’ve been riding with a full face helmet.  Most of the riders I saw were riding with beanie helmets.  The wind noise without a full face helmet must be incredible because it is almost unbearable to me with a full face helmet and ear plugs.  If I had tried to ride with the broken windshield and my full face helmet but without the ear plugs, I would have been totally deaf by the time I got home.  As it was, there was still a lot of ear pain due to wind noise. 

Let’s face it, I would not hold out when water boarded! 

The ride from the Canadian border down to Great Falls, Montana is not very interesting.  It’s on I15 and it’s your basic freeway ride.  The land around the freeway is rolling low hills with nothing out there.  It’s a lot like the land from Wichita, Kansas up to Kansas City on I35.  Nothing much to see. 

At Great Falls, Garmin Girl sends us off onto Hwy 87 south.  This goes through an almost desert type terrain.  Pretty dry but a nice highway without excessive traffic.  We were able to move along at a pretty good clip here.  Lyle later said we passed two LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers) going the opposite direction while on this highway but I didn’t see any myself.  I must have been looking another direction when they went by. 

I’ve always felt that the traction on the actual yellow line of a highway is less than the actual roadway and that was proved again on this highway.  The highway was in excellent condition and actually looked like it had been repaved within the last year.  It was that good looking. 

I was going around a curve to the right and I happened to “wander” a little to the left and went over the yellow line in the middle of the road.  I wasn’t leaning over a lot but when I hit that yellow line the rear tire just slide over to the left about two inches and caught again.  While this doesn’t disturb your turn much at all, it certainly causes your heart to beat fast for a few seconds.  Mainly because you’re thinking, “what if it was more like twelve inches or more”?  Now THAT would be exciting! 

Anyway, I made it a point to stay away from the center line after that.    To me, the coefficient of friction for any lines painted on a highway should actually be higher than the coefficient of friction for the main road itself.  That way, running over a line would have no affect on your vehicle at all.  But noooooo, they seem to do the exact opposite when they work on a highway. 

Hwy 87 runs southeast down towards Billings, Montana.  It meets up with hwy 191 which was the road being worked on when we traveled through here on the way to Alaska a few weeks ago.  Well, they were still working on the highway and they still had the sign our that said,  “Motorcycle rider warning.  Road construction ahead.  Alternate route suggested”.  Having  just been to Alaska and seen the worst “road construction” in the Northern Hemisphere, I was not worried and just headed down Hwy 191 towards Billings. 

We came to the construction area and it had a couple of different detours that were gravel roads and we just went down them like we were in L.A. cruising down Sunset Boulevard.  It’s amazing what a little dirt road riding experience can do for a GS rider’s confidence.  I was thinking Lyle and I were getting so good we should think about entering the Portugal – Dakar Rally next year.  And then I remembered Tim Hall from Missouri who actually ran in it in 2007.  He ended up having to be helicoptered to the nearest large “spanish speaking” city in the Canary Islands from North Africa so he could spend a lot of time healing himself before he was able to fly back to the U.S.  on a commercial jet.  You can read one persons interesting impression of what the 1998 rally was like, here:  http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Downs/1382/html/pdrally98.html 

If you’ve never heard of it, it is one WILD race.  Just to finish the race on a motorcycle would be something special for most riders.  A LOT of the entrants don’t even finish! The year Tim ran in it a rider from South Africa was killed.  I believe he was only 29 years old.  It is one tough race. 

Highway 191 then connects with highway 12 which then connects to highway 3 and runs down to Billings.  Coming into Billings on highway 3 is an interesting trip.  You’re up high near the airport and looking down over cliffs at Billings which appears to be down in a hole.  It looks like you can see the whole city from up there.  I’d like to spend some time in Billings some day.  It is really an interesting layout for a city. 

We eventually connected up with I90 and headed for Wyoming and our next destination, Sheridan. 

Day 21 Whitecourt Alberta to Shelby, Montana 525 Miles

Today we made it back to the good ol’ USA.  It’s good to be home too.  Back to the land of high speed limits.  The ride from Whitecourt down to the U.S. border isn’t very interesting either.  It’s mainly “plains” type land without much to see along the way.  Plus the traffic is quite a bit higher when you get this far south.  You see more cars, more police cars, and more speed traps. 

Since we had been on the road for quite a while by the time we got across the border, we decided to stop in Shelby, Montana.  I stopped here last year on the way to Alaska so I knew where the cheap rooms were.  We stayed in the Glacier Motel (probably named that because the city is close to the Glacier National Park; a popular tourist spot.  Not the motel though, just the park.

The motel wasn’t anything at all to write home about.  It was cheap and that was what was important. 

The motel is on the south side of the highway going into Shelby.  On the north side of the highway directly across from the motel, was just a lot of train tracks.   Almost like a very large train switching area.  There must have been at least six sets of tracks over there.  If the tracks hadn’t been there, the scenery would have been really nice.  Who likes to look at a bunch of dirty boxcars on a bunch of sidings though? 

We went down to the casino (it seems like every little burg even close to the interstate has at least one casino) and had supper.  I was to0 tired to work on the blog then so I went to bed. 

Tomorrow we head towards South Dakota and closer to home. 

Day 20 From Pink Mountain to Whitecourt 394.7 Miles

The drive to Pink Mountain was pretty bad again with the construction and due to rooms not being available it was necessary for us to stay in the same hotel I stayed in last year. 

It turns out, the guy who is running it just bought it and has only been working on it for three weeks.  He has made some improvements but it still has a long way to go.  He knows it too.  He said he’s trying to do as much as he can as quickly as he can but there is a lot of work ahead of him.  At least now they had wi-fi even if it was only in the restaurant and the lobby.  The last guy didn’t have it at all. 

When we started out from Pink Mountain the next morning the weather was cold.  In fact, I might as well say it’s been either cool or cold every day.  I’ve worn my jacket with its liner every day and I’ve worn my waterproof riding pants with their liner every day also.  Some days I had to put on my electric jacket and electric gloves but I feel pretty confident in saying that there has not been a warm day since we started this trip.   But the warm days are ahead of us for sure when we get back to the states!

This morning I tried a little troubleshooting on my engine missing problem.  I took out the new plugs and replaced them with the two old ones that were in the engine back when I started having the “missing under load” problem which turned out to be a bad fuel filter (after only about 15k miles).  They hadn’t fixed that problem at the time and I now wanted to eliminate them as a possibility for the “missing when cold” problem. 

It had rained last night so the bike was wet all over.  When I tried to start the bike with the old plugs in it, it almost wouldn’t start at all.  When it did finally start, it ran so bad I had to keep the throttle twisted in order for the engine to run.  Pretty bad! 

But, that did eliminate the plugs as a source of this new missing problem, which was the goal.  So, I put the new plugs back in and started the engine and let it warm up for quite a while.  It wasn’t running well at all either.  When we finally hit the road, the engine was missing pretty badly and missed off and on for at least fifty miles.  This is one puzzle.  It has missed all the way from around twenty miles on the highway to up to one hundred miles on the highway.  I can’t see this being either a temperature or humidity problem.  But!  What could it be? 

After about fifty miles the engine started running fine and ran fine for the rest of the day.  This problem is going to be a difficult one to fix, for sure.   And when I get it fixed, I’m going to add the title of “Master BMW Mechanic” to my business card!  Plus, I’m going to be fixing it without the umpteen thousand dollar BMW computer that the guy in Anchorage was using to try and fix mine. 

Today we did Pink Mountain in British Columbia to Whitecourt in Alberta Canada.  This is a pretty area going through a lot of forests, which in this case, has suffered through a forest fire in the not-to-distant past.  This area reminds me a little of Colorado when navigating the foothills.  Not real tall mountains but a lot of up and down.  And of course, the normal northern road construction areas.  You have to experience these areas to really understand them. 

A motorcycle rider in the far frozen North (at least THIS motorcycle rider) begins to get a slightly elevated blood pressure reading just seeing a sign up ahead saying “ROAD CONSTRUCTION”.  Because you never know exactly what you’re going to find there.  And since we met the guy at Toad River riding the new BMW GS650 that he had crashed and smashed up the body work on his bike, I think about “what was it that caused him to crash”?  “Is it something that would cause me to crash”?  You just never know for sure.  I’ve been riding around up here in 2008 and now 2009 and I’ve seen a lot of construction and I’ve been REALLY close to dumping the bike over more than once but I still wonder if I’ve seen the worst of it or just the beginning.  So, every time I see a construction sign, I start the thinking  process all over again.  Maybe that never goes away. 

We arrived in Whitecourt fairly early and found a nice motel which was probably the best motel we’ve stayed in since leaving the “lower forty-eight”.  It was a Quality Inn and they let us have rooms for $80 plus tax, which made the total around $87 Canadian or about $115 U.S.  A person needs a lot of money to travel through Canada! 

The restaurant at the Quality Inn was run by a Greek guy from Texas. He had a lot of stories to tell and he wanted us to know just how much he loved the U.S.  He carried on for the whole time we were there having supper about how much he liked living in the U.S. and how many Greeks there were in the U.S. 

Tomorrow we make a run for the border.  We should be able to make it into the U.S. by days end. 

Day 19 From Watson Lake to Pink Mountain

We had planned on trying to get from Watson Lake to Dawson Creek today but did not plan on the amount of construction that was actually going on.  Wow! Is all I can say.  There were miles of it going on today and as usual, it was all gravel roads.  Some of the gravel was thick too and on roads with drop off edges too.  Pretty scary when you get in the middle of it and the bike starts sliding all over the place.  Very “colorful” words start coming out of your mouth.  Of course nobody can hear those words because you have your helmet on.  But they still come out. 

One section we had to go through was all dry.  So, the “follow me” truck was generating large dust clouds that we had to ride through while following him.  And when you can’t see the gravel you’re trying to ride through and it’s thick gravel too, it makes things much too exciting for me. 

Plus, in one section, they let a few big trucks come through from the other side and as they went by us at high speed they generated even larger dust clouds.  There was a little bit of time there when we could see absolutely nothing but a white cloud of dust.  Mighty dangerous riding there for a few minutes. 

We made it through ok but, as for me,  it was a really intense time there.  My blood pressure went way too high there. 

We made it to Pink Mountain and stopped at the same hotel we stayed at when going up to Alaska and checked for rooms.  There were no rooms available and I could see why.  There was a new clerk working there now and she looked a lot like Alexia from the Ugly Betty TV show.  And she was dressed just like someone from Mode Magazine would be dressed.  She was overdressed for that place.  We’re talking about a motel that rents rooms to oil workers and highway construction people and the occasional motorcycle rider.  Not a fancy place by any stretch of the imagination. 

We went on to the next motel and it had rooms available.  This was the same motel I stayed in when I came to Alaska last year but now has new owners.  They are working hard to make it a better place then it used to be.  The rooms are cheaper too which is good. 

On the ride today we saw a lot of Stone Sheep on the highway, Buffalo lying in the grass along side the highway,  Lyle saw an Elk cow, and we saw one small black bear and Lyle saw another black bear. 

Tomorrow we’re off to Calgary if we can make it. 

Day 18 Slums of Whitehorse to Watson Lake

Today started out really cold.  It was only about 40 degrees and I was cold.  I wasn’t going to hook up my electrics because the sun was shining and I thought all would be toasty!  Boy was I wrong.  I had the electrics running the whole time we were on the motorcycles. 

Ran into a lot of construction today just like all over the far north.  They can only work on the roads in the summer time so when the snow is gone, they attack road construction with great gusto! 

Because it was so cold, my motorcycle was missing pretty bad for about 50 miles.  The missing problem seems to be tied to the outside air temperature somehow.  The colder it is, the longer my engine misses.  Once it quits missing, it runs fine the rest of the day.  I’m afraid a real fix for this problem will have to wait until I get the bike home and have it in the garage to work on it.  If the “Master BMW Mechanic” of Anchorage couldn’t fix the problem then I should have a little more time to fix it.  Then I will claim the prize of “Master BMW Mechanic of Anchorage” myself. 

We arrived at Watson Lake just in time to claim the last room at the hotel. Several people came in wanting rooms after we got the last room.  There are a lot of tourists running around northern Canada and Alaska at this time of year. 

Thanks to me again, we got a late start leaving Watson Lake the next morning.  But, that isn’t unusual for me.  I’m always the last one ready to go somewhere.  I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking!

It’s on to Pink Mountain tomorrow. 

Day 17 Dawson City to Whitehorse, Yukon

Today was a perfect day for riding.  Just a little cool with bright sun. 

Yesterday we had walked around Dawson to see what was here and get a general “feel” for the place.  My take on it is a big tourist trap.  Nothing here that doesn’t play along with their “history” as one of the “gold rush towns”.  And they get a lot of tourists coming here too.  Buses actually come from Tok and Whitehorse and bring loads of Japanese and Chinese tourists.  Plus some speaking a language I didn’t understand.  It may have been Portuguese or even Italian. 

A lot of dancing saloons and gambling houses.  Even with all the commercial stuff to attract tourists, the town has a beautiful setting in the mountains.  It reminds me a little of Silverton, Colorado. 

Lyle was looking at some pricing in the grocery stores while we were there and found some surprising things.  There were some rather small watermelons in the grocery store and they were selling for $10.  Keeping in mind that this town is in Canada and the exchange rate is .75 cents Canadian for each U.S. dollar given to them makes this stuff even more expensive.  That ten dollar watermelon would actually cost us about $13 in U.S. money.  Way too expensive for me.  And everything in there was expensive like that. 

Lyle has decided that he has seen enough of Canada and Alaska and he says there is nothing worth seeing in either place.  I disagree because it all depends on exactly what you are looking for.  Alaska is beautiful but I wouldn’t want to live here mainly because of the weather and the sun.  The weather is unbearable for half the year and during that same period of time, the country is dark!  So, you freeze to death in the dark!  Not my kind of place.  Give me Florida any day!  You can play golf every day and there is no chance of a person dying of “frostbite”.  !  !  !

So tomorrow we will begin the long journey back home to Missouri. 

We had dinner at McDonalds tonight and while there a family was also having dinner.  Dad, Mom, and two children.  The women asked me, “did you just come from Alaska and did you have dinner at Fast Eddy’s in Tok the other night”?  It turns out that they were having dinner there at the same time we were and both of them remembered us.  I kind of remembered them.  That just proves what I’ve always said.  When you go to Alaska, you see the same people all the time because there is basically one road in and one road out. 

I don’t have internet where we are staying tonight (located in the slums of Whitehorse) so I won’t be able to send this out.  Plus, I won’t be able to check the internet either.  I put my GS problem on the list last night asking if anybody had an idea what might be wr0ng with my bike.  I hope I’ll have some internet access tomorrow to find out if someone responded to my request for help. 

Day 16 From Tok to Dawson City

Well, as predicted, when I started my bike up today it wouldn’t run right.  It was missing a lot on what seems like one cylinder. 

We left Tok and headed towards the highway to Chicken.  The map said it was mostly paved and we found out it was mostly dirt!

But it was mainly dry.  In some spots where it was wet, there was a lot of mud and that wasn’t fun at all.  If the road had been paved, it would have been a spectacular road to ride on.  It was so isolated out there and very few people live out there.  I thought we would see a lot of animals but not a one.  It took us longer to get there then we anticipated but we made it without any problems. 

As I said,when I started my bike in Tok , it was missing a lot.  We drove to the Chicken highway (ab0ut 13 miles) and then went up the highway another 2-4 miles and all of a sudden, my bike starts running like it’s new.  It was really running well and it continued to run well all the way to Dawson City. 

We gassed up at Chicken and looked around at nothing!  That is the poorest excuse for a bike destination I have ever seen.  There is nothing there.  So, we headed on to the border crossing at Boundary, Alaska and then on to Dawson City. 

Our books all say the road from the border crossing to Dawson City is “mostly paved”.  Well, no surprise to me, but the road is actually “MOSTLY DIRT”.    And, I must say, a dirt that is not fun to ride for any distances either.  We actually had to stop for a muscle break before we got there.  We were both whipped by the time we arrived in Dawson City.  

We arrived and checked into our room at the Westmark Inn. A nice hotel but fairly expensive.  Since we’re now back in Canada again, everything is fairly expensive. 

We had a dinner that was also “fairly expensive” and we’re turning in now. 

New Update on Bike Symptoms:

It seems to run poorly when it is first started up in the mornings and after running for a while it seems to start running correctly.  No idea why.  And rain may affect just how long it takes it to start running properly too.  Coming from Tok, we rode for probably five hours before getting over the pass where it started to warm up and the rain quit before the bike started running right. 

This morning, the weather was really nice but not quite warm and we only had to go about 15 miles before the bike started working correctly and then it remained “healed” until the end of the riding day. 

After it starts running properly, it continues to run well for the rest of the day. 

Tomorrow will give me another chance to see just what it takes for the bike to start working right.  This could turn out to be a sparkplug wire needing replaced or something else like that.  Something that moisture is getting to until the bike is totally warmed up. 

Tomorrow I’m going to do a new test.  I’m going to totally warm the bike up before we start out.  I’m going to let it idle until the temperature gauge warms up to the top before we start off and see if that makes it run right from the beginning. 

We’re off to Haines Junction tomorrow and then on to Haines.  Or maybe we’ll go to Valdez instead and then take the ferry over to Haines to see what it looks like and then back to Valdez.  We’ll make it up as we go. 

Day 15 Move Out Anyway 349 Miles

After checking many different things on the bike and finding nothing to work on, we have decided to hit the road anyway and see what happens along the way.

We left from Anchorage to go to Tok.  When we left Anchorage it was raining and it continued to rain all the way to the pass.  At the pass we had lunch and then went on to Tok.  Not too far after the pass, the rain actually quit and we started to warm up a little. 

Without the rain, that would have been a most spectacular ride today.  It was through the right kind of country to see a lot of wildlife if there were no rain.  Plus, the bike began to run even worse!  I thought at times it was going to actually quit.  It didn’t, but it sure felt like it was at any minute. 

After the pass and after the weather started to warm up, the bike started running like it was new.  I don’t know why but it was really running well.  l was amazed.  When we stopped for gas the next time after the pass, Lyle found some “Sea Foam” to use as injector cleaner and I poured some into the gas tank.  I don’t know how much that helped but we tried it anyway. 

The bike ran like it was new the rest of the way. 

I’m starting to think maybe moisture or some kind of temperature sensor.  After we got over the pass, the rain quit and the temperature went up a little so it could be something along those lines. 

If you ever get to Alaska, take the drive from Anchorage to Tok.  It is through some of the most isolated areas in Alaska but it is beautiful. 

We made it to Tok and checked into the same hotel we stayed in before.  And, just like before, it was raining in Tok. 

Saw no wildlife at all today.  Some of the best country we’ve been in but no wildlife. 

Tomorrow we head to Chicken and Dawson City.  Still riding a bike I can’t figure out what is wrong with it.  Hope we get closer to a fix tomorrow. 

Day 14 What to Do? What to Do? (No Miles)

Well, here we are in Anchorage, AK with a bike that BMW gave up on fixing.  It still doesn’t run right but it’s all my responsibility now. 

We spent today searching out things to help us either make this bike better or help us troubleshoot what the heck its problem is. 

I found another fuel filter which I may try as a “last resort” if I can’t make it work any other way. 

Otherwise we have no idea what to do. 

Day 13 Nothing Going On (no movement)

Well, just a short blog to let everybody know we’re fine but have been waiting on BMW to try and find out what is wrong with my bike.  They gave up yesterday and said they couldn’t fix it! !

That’s a first for me.  They can’t fix it.  Even their master BMW mechanic “threw in the towel”.  I don’t think that would EVER happen in the “lower forty-eight”. 

He spend a LOT of time with the bike hooked to the special BMW computer analyzer and he never got one fault show up.  The bike just wouldn’t run right. 

The symptoms are:

From idle or very low speed, the engine will miss intermittently.  Some times it’s like it misses on one cylinder for every other stroke for about ten feet or so and other times it’s like it misses on one cylinder solid for twenty feet or so and other times it will start off from a stop without missing at all.  But rarely will it start off without missing at least some. 

But, when you get if off idle or slow speed, like going down the highway at forty or so and you crank on the throttle, it will go like a scalded cat.  It will not miss any.  All you have to do, when it is going along at 45mph is turn the throttle and the bike accelerates instantly up to what ever speed you try to get to and it won’t miss a stroke all the way to ninety or more! 

Leading up to this problem, the bike was stuttering when put under load.  Like when you go down the road at fifty and then crank the throttle, it would miss a lot as it was accelerating.  I first tried new plugs for this problem and then tried a new fuel filter.  The new fuel filter fixed that problem for a couple of days and then this new problem came up. 

We’re moving on tomorrow since they gave up and I’ll start updating the blog again but if someone has an idea about what could be wrong, just send me an email at hpa_missouri@hotmail.com. 

I have been thinking that it could be a problem with the “throttle position sensor” not being a “smooth resistance” when it is at its lowest settings but that should have shown as a fault in his computer when running it on the computer.  ?  ? ??

 

On the road again! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Day 13 (Real Day 13)

We started the day with my bike not running well.  Our plan was to head down south to the Homer area but my bike wasn’t running well so instead, we hunted down a BMW dealer to find some spark plugs.  We found The Motorcycle Shop and stopped by there and bought a set of plugs for my bike. 

I installed the plugs in their parking lot and took it for a short test.  It wasn’t working any better and appeared to be getting worse, the more I rode it.  So back to The Motorcycle Shop.

This time I talked to their service manager Keith and asked him what he thought my problem could be.  The symptoms were that when you tried to accelerate from any speed, the engine would miss really badly.  He asked when was the last time I replaced the fuel filter (normally this filter is inside the gas tank and only gets changed every 30 to 40k miles but I had moved the filter to the outside so it’s easy to change).  I told him I had put a new filter on before I came to Alaska last year so it had only about 15k miles on a new filter. 

He said I should try another filter and since I had one and it was easy to change, I replaced the old one with a new one.  While I was changing out the filter a guy walked over and said “ I thought BMWs never needed working on".  I looked at him and thought I recognized him but wasn’t really sure until he introduced himself as Greg the writer.  I was totally stunned.  He was Greg Frazier.  He’s been around the world by motorcycle five times and written at least five books about touring on motorcycles of which I own one.

We stood around and talked to him for probably a half hour and I really enjoyed talking to him.  I had Lyle take our picture together and I took one of Lyle with him even though Lyle had never heard of him. 

Greg has been riding motorcycles around the world for most of his life.  He owns several old Indian motorcycles and several other brands also.  He said he lives half the year in Thailand and the other half in the U.S.  It sounds like the ideal life to me but he says writers don’t make a lot of money and it’s a hard life to get things published. 

He was on his way to Nome, Alaska to ride a little dirt bike around and then write an article for one of the magazines he writes for.  He bought the bike new at the Motorcycle Shop and was flying the bike out to Nome and then he planned on selling it for whatever he could get for it to help pay for the trip. 

I got several pictures of him and will post one in my blog. 

When I finished installing the fuel filter and took the bike for a ride, it worked perfectly.  I figured I was done working on bikes for the day and we could head down to Whittier, Alaska.  Boy was I wrong!

We cruised down towards Whittier and started through the tunnel.  They send cars through the tunnel first and motorcycles last so Lyle and were all by ourselves in the tunnel.  I got almost all the way across the tunnel and managed to stick my front wheel in a rut and plop, the bike goes over on its side.  It wasn’t over on its side very long but when I started it back up and tried it, it seemed to run fine but when I got it out of the tunnel, it didn’t run fine at all.  It was back to missing intermittently for some reason. 

So, we decided it was time to head back to the shop in the morning (the shop was already closed for the day at that time).  So we found a room and waited until the shop opened the next m0rning and take the bike back there to have their BMW Master Mechanic look at it. 

The shop didn’t open until 10am so while we were waiting the next morning, I pulled the valve covers off and checked the valve adjustment settings.  They were a little off due to the number of miles I had put on the bike since the last adjustments (around 15,000 miles or so) but nothing was off drastically at all. 

I tested the bike after doing the valve adjustments but it still ran badly so we went on over to the bike shop and handed it over to the mechanic. 

He hooked his extremely expensive magic BMW computer to the bike and tested it for at least an hour and found nothing!  The bike ran super bad but showed nothing on his computer.  Then he took it outside and ran more tests on it.  Then brought it back in the shop and hooked it to the computer and ran more tests.  Then back outside and then back inside and on the computer again.  This went on for at least four hours without any progress.  Finally, the service manager came out and said they could not fix it because they didn’t know what it was doing wrong as nothing showed on the computer. 

So off we went back to the hotel with a bike that didn’t run well at all.  We did a lot of thinking about what we were going to do the next day to try and fix it or at least find out what it was doing wrong. 

Basically a wasted day! !

Day 12 396.7 Miles

I closed off the last entry by telling that I had purchased a new tire and we were ready to go south.  Well, when I went out this morning, I thought I’d check my air pressure to make sure everything was all right and while doing so I just happened to look at the tire info imprinted on the sidewall of the tire and got a big surprise.  They didn’t mount the tire I told them to!  So, a late start due to us having to go over to the shop again. 

The tires we are using are Anakee 2 type.  There was an older tire called an Anakee but that was replaced by the Anakee 2 due to complaints regarding tread life from a lot of users.  The Anakee 2 is supposed to give somewhere in the area of 30% more tread life.

Well, the shop evidently had some of last years tires and thought they would get rid of one of them by selling it to someone who was not local.  I was really upset.  I told them I thought they did that on purpose and they didn’t say anything except, “I guess that means you want the Anakee 2?”  What a bunch of bozos!

We were finally on the road after a two hour delay.  Now we have the right tire and the weather is great and we are heading for Denali Park. 

Never having been to Denali Park, we had no idea what it would be like.  First off, it looks like the park is more for pedestrians than it is for people in cars.  The road into the park is only open to cars for the first nine miles or so.  After that you can only go via a “tour bus” that will take you further into the park.  They have walking trails all through the park and we saw people walking all over out in the park.  With so many people walking around, I don’t see how there could ever be an animal anywhere.  Not my idea of what a national park should be at all. 

We saw no animals of any kind other than one seagull in the parking lot at the end of the park road.  Nothing else.  We thought we might see a limping caribou but no.  What a disappointment!

After leaving the park we headed further south to Wasilla.  Now that was something.  I love that little town.  It reminded me of Lucerne, Switzerland.  Just like Lucerne, Wasilla is right next to a large lake and it is really something to see.  Plus, off in the distance you can see the mountains.  An ideal setting if it were only a little closer to home. 

While we were stopped at a red light on main street in Wasilla, a woman in the car next to Lyle started talking to him (Lyle seems to spend a lot of time trying to pick up women!)  It turns out she was from Missouri and was raised in Kansas City.  Of course, stopped at a red light, you don’t have a lot of time to get very much information but he didn’t even get her phone number. 

Along that line, we have made one discovery regarding people from Alaska.  They are always looking at license plates.  If they see one from “the lower forty-eight” , they want to talk to the person because they either lived in, or know someone who lives in the state you’re from. 

We left Wasilla and moved on south to Anchorage where we finally found a room.  When we checked in there was another BMW GS parked in the lot from North Carolina.  The  owner came out of his room when he saw us and talked for a while.  He started out from NC on the same day we did and is leaving Anchorage and going up to Deadhorse from here. 

Anchorage is also a pretty city with the mountains in the background.  It’s too large though.  Just too many people here in a small space.  But it also looks like a city in Europe.  It was damaged by the earthquake a few years back and quite a bit of new construction exists today. 

Another long day as it is now well after ten pm and we just got back from having supper.  I think I’ll sleep in tomorrow. 

Day 11 Minimal Activity 18 Miles

Today we did nothing.  We were trying to recover from the really long day we had yesterday. 

We slept in and then went to lunch and ate like pigs.  I was still tired from yesterday but I had to go see about getting my tire fixed. 

The shop we went to, Alaska Fun Center, looked at the tire and recommended I get a new tire because it isn’t normally good practice to drive a motorcycle on a tire that has been patched once.  My tire would have two patches on it. 

I ended up buying a new tire.  They put it on and we are now ready to move on to the south to the Anchorage and Denali Park area. 

Lyle says he is comfortable not going to Deadhorse as it could take up to four days more to accomplish that and he would rather spend those four days seeing different things in Alaska.  Now that he has seen over one hundred miles of the Dalton Highway (two hundred, if you count the trip back), he knows he could get to Deadhorse without any problem so would rather see other things in the time he has left here.  Plus, he says if we take out those four days then we will miss our appointment to meet Sarah Palin and get her to autograph her book for Lyle.  I agreed, we didn’t want to miss that appointment.  Not after he spent the money to buy her book. 

Day 10 Even More Rain 498 Miles

Well, it was raining when we arrived at Tok, Alaska yesterday and it was raining when we left this morning.  It hadn’t rained all night and then just as we got the bikes packed up, down came the rain.  One thing we can be thankful for is that most places we gas up have a cover over the pumps.  Otherwise, it would be really miserable. 

It rained all the way to Fairbanks today.  That made the construction areas really interesting.  The way they do road repair on the highway is to lay down a thick layer of dirt (usually wet dirt that they grade smooth) and while they are doing that, it is a very fun ride for motorcycles to go through a construction area.  Then they lay down a thick layer of gravel and that makes for an even different but equally fun experience. 

Last year when I was up here, one of the construction areas was on a long downhill section of highway that was most unnerving to this motorcycle rider.  I just knew I was going to start sliding before I reached the bottom and end up in a ditch.  I made it down ok but ended up in the oncoming lane of traffic.  Fortunately, at that time, there were no cars coming up the hill.  Otherwise I would have been toast.  This year, that same hill is all nicely paved and we just cruised right down that hill without any problems. 

When we arrived at Fairbanks the first stop was a Wal-Mart so we could buy one gallon gas cans to take with us on the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean.  On one portion of the Dalton, it is over 230 miles without a gas station.  After getting them we stopped for lunch at McDonalds and then headed for the Dalton Highway.  We encountered even more rain getting to the Dalton.  It’s about a fifty mile drive just to get to the start of the highway.  Today, the worker crews were working on a very early part of the highway (actually just a dirt road, not a highway as we know them) and Lyle got to experience some of the really bad side of the Dalton.  Mud!  The crews water down the road real heavy and then they grade the mud flat.  Not too much of a problem for cars but really tough to get through if you’re on a motorcycle.  We made it through that without any major problems though and headed on towards the Yukon River crossing, our first gas stop on the Dalton.  I felt so good when I got there that I had a dish of chocolate ice-cream and it was yummy. 

While there we met a guy on an older BMW R1100GS.  Like our bikes but a couple years older.   He told us that he had just been  to the Denali National Park and when we was cruising through the park, a caribou came out in the road.  He was going to miss the caribou easily but then saw that a car coming the other way didn’t see him on his motorcycle and was going to swerve around the caribou in his lane.  He had a choice to make.  Either hit the caribou or hit the car head on.  He chose the caribou. 

He cracked a couple of ribs and had to spend time in his hotel room for them to heal before he could get back on his motorcycle.  He was moving real slow.  He said he was only going to the Arctic Circle and back to Fairbanks as the Dalton was just too rough for him in his current condition.  I don’t blame him.  That’s exactly what I would do in his situation. 

After gassing up we headed on north towards Coldfoot, our intended stop for the night before going on the last 220 miles of dirt road to Deadhorse.  The road, at this point, was hard packed dirt and we were moving on!  We probably got up to sixty miles per hour in some sections.  Let’s just say, we were wasting no time.  When we got about forty miles north of the Yukon river and still over one hundred miles from Coldfoot, my front wheel started feeling like it was “wandering”.  It felt like the front axle was loose or something.  I pulled over and asked Lyle what my tires looked like, and he said it looked like the rear tire was going flat.  Well, it was. 

So there we were over 45 miles north of the last remnants of civilization and over 100 miles from the next outpost and we have a flat tire.

I have to tell you at this time that Lyle was introduced to the Alaska state bird.  The mosquito!  These things are relentless in their pursuit of blood from warm mammals.  Immediately when you stop moving, there are no, or very few, mosquitoes present.  But within two to three minutes there appears a swarm of them and they can drive a person absolutely insane if you aren’t dressed properly.  Usually when I stop anywhere I leave my helmet and coat on and some times I’ll even leave my gloves on.  But this time we have to work on the tire so that requires some exposed skin.  It is a real challenge to try to do anything when they are swarming around looking for skin to land on.  I was told last year when I was here that a caribou can lose up to 1/3 of its body weight to mosquitoes.  That is almost unbelievable. 

Thankfully, where we stopped just happened to be on the peak of a hill and the wind was blowing strongly and that kept the mosquitoes away a little. 

We looked the tire over and found a hole that looked like it had been made by a small sharp rock.  I got my tire plugging kit out and plugged the hole.  Then we tried to put air in the tire using a small cheap electric air pump from china. It looked like the pump wasn’t working as the tire would not air up. 

Just about that time, a guy on a 1200 GS stopped to see if he could help.  He had a very old bicycle air pump and we tried that to see if we could get the tire to air up.  It didn’t work either.  Now I decided it was time to take the tire off the bike and take a closer look to see if maybe there was more than one hole in it.  I found another small hole and plugged that one too.  Now we used the bicycle pump and put air in the tire and it looked like it was holding well.  Meanwhile, the wind has died down a little and the mosquitoes are really beginning to multiply. 

Now it is decision time.  We are over three hundred miles from Deadhorse and I have a tire with two plugs in it.  And we can’t be one hundred percent sure that the tire isn’t slowly losing air still.  Plugs are never considered safe to ride on for any length of time.  They are thought of as more of a temporary fix until you get to a place that can patch the time.  It’s late and if we leave right now, we won’t get back to Fairbanks until after midnight. 

We decided the best course of action is to load most of the weight on Lyle’s bike and we head back to Fairbanks.  We made it back to Fairbanks without any more problems and found a hotel room.  By the time we got checked in and in our rooms, it was after 4am.  That was a long day! 

That was the longest ride I can remember ever taking.  I was so tired coming back to Fairbanks, that I had problems concentrating.  And on a road like the Dalton Highway that is not a good thing. 

So, I can say that the Dalton Highway took two hostages today but we were eventually able to escape and return to civilization.  Free, but defeated in out attempt to conquer the road all the way to Deadhorse. 

Maybe next year

Tomorrow we head south to the Denali National Park and then on to the Anchorage area.  We will keep a sharp lookout for caribou along the way. 

Day 9 More Rain 292.3 Miles

Today was a short day due to the conditions we had to travel through. 

The day started out perfect.  I visited the little known bakery in Haines Junction and had one of the most scrumptious sticky buns you have ever tasted.  It was “to write home about”. 

We traveled from Haines Junction to Tok,  AK.  Our main problem today was rain, which started about an hour after leaving Haines Junction and continued all the way to Tok. 

The next problem was the construction zones.  Really slow going and moderate gravel and mud due to the rain.  I am still not able to reach any semblance of a Zen state when approaching gravel.  Maybe I’ll never get there.  And when you have constant rain on your face shield, making it more difficult to see the road, it just makes it worse.  One of today's construction zones had a long period of fairly heavy gravel and that was not good.  The front end of the bike started into a “wobble” several times  before I reached the end.  From my research, I’m told that this wobble can often times end up with a “face plant” if it gets too radical.  I believe it.  Let’s just say the “pucker factor” was rather high several times today.  I wonder if a GPR Stabilizer would help in this case?

The third problem today was “frost heaves”.  The road freezing and thawing many times during the winter, causes the roadway to develop big “speed bumps”.  I was testing the GS suspension quite vigorously a few times today.  It passed with flying colors. 

The forth problem today was the fact that some form of motor home tour group was on its way to Alaska at the same time we were.  So you have a seemingly endless stream of big ocean liners on wheels going real slow because of the frost heaves and Lyle and I trying to pass them one by one.  At the same time, trying to contend with the frost heaves and the road construction.  All while trying to see through rain drops on our face shields. 

There was one very upsetting event today.  We were running along at a nice clip (we can speed, now that we’re out of Canada) and all of a sudden a guy on a Gold Wing, pulling a trailer, went whizzing by us like we were standing still.  Well, maybe not that bad, but he went by us pretty fast.  Then I could see up ahead where there was another long stretch of gravel coming up.  So, I’m thinking “we’re on BMW GSes and he’s on a Honda tank.  This is where he gets his comeuppance”.  I have to tell you, this guy did not even slow down for the gravel.  I was totally amazed.  He is either a multiple winner of the Dakar Rally or the Gold Wing was a trike.  Since I didn’t see three wheels on that bike, I have to assume he was one good bike rider.  Any way, it turns out that we were out GSed by a GW.  Humbled I am. 

We arrived in Tok, Alaska and immediately tried to find a room.  Well, as usual, there was something going on that made rooms in short supply.  In this case, it was a bunch of Bentley owners driving to the big event in Anchorage.  They were coming from all over and they were ALL driving their old Bentleys to the event.  These were cars made in the twenties and thirties mostly. Now, you may not find this too amazing except for the fact that the majority of these Bentleys do not have tops.  They might as well have been on motorcycles.  When it rained, they got wet.  Maybe three or four of them were models that actually had tops on them.  The rest were just open “roadsters”.  The drivers and their passengers were dressed just like Lyle and I.  Some of them were wearing attire more suited to a Nor'easter but they seemed to be having fun.  

Since this was such a short day, we may try and make it from here to Coldfoot, Alaska tomorrow.  Normally, we would stay in Fairbanks a day and then head to Coldfoot the following day.  It all depends on the weather tomorrow and the forecast for the following three days.  It the weather is too bad, we’ll just go to the Arctic Circle and come back to Fairbanks. 

This is another place without internet so this post won’t go out until we can find an “open” hotspot. 

Day 8 A Much Slower Day Thanks to our New Friends!!

364.5 Miles with a moving average of only 56.2mph due mainly to our slower travel rate and also the fog in the mountains and the construction zones we had to stop for. 

I have to tell you I love this Zumo!  I can’t ever imagine taking a trip without it.  It’s not always one hundred percent accurate but it sure beats trying to read a map while you’re cruising down the highway or trying to thread downtown traffic in a city you know absolutely nothing about.  My Nolan N-102 bluetooth enabled helmet and my Zumo and I’m ready to go anywhere.  I don’t care much for the Garmin route building software MapSource but the hardware is excellent now that they’ve ironed out the bugs. 

Today we travelled from Watson Lake (home of the Sign Post Forest) to Haines Junction with a little side trip in Whitehorse to find tools. 

While it is a known fact that BMW motorcycles never fail, I am just a tool kind of guy and it makes me feel good to have tools that I probably won’t ever use on my bike but I like to look at them.  :)  And now that I have a wrench that will fit the bolt that goes into the transmission shifting pawl and links to the foot shifter, I feel MUCH better.  :)  If anything were to ever happen such as the shift lever not being connected to the transmission, I would be in a position to readily fix such a failure.  But,then I day dream again.

Today was a nice day for the entire travel time.  Sun all the way. 

We stopped for breakfast at another one of those ubiquitous campgrounds you find all along the Alaska Highway.  They get their power from generators, usually their water from a water delivery truck, and they contain a gas station, a restaurant, RV park, cabins, camping and probably a Chinese laundry too. :)  They all have satellite TV and high speed wi-fi.  And I’m thinking they are all one tick away from turning into Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”.  Can you imagine living the rest of your life in the wilderness like some modern day Grizzly Adams?  Heeerrrree’s Johnny ! ! 

I had a cinnamon bun for breakfast and Lyle had the kitchen sink.    This is the same guy who said “I never eat breakfast”!

This camp ground is owned by a John Deere nut.  The guy painted his porch on his mobile home in JD colors, the playground swing set, the picnic tables and chairs and other stuff I can’t remember.  One serious JD person.  What did I say?  TICK

We met a group of Harley riders on their way to the Arctic Circle.  They asked what the road was like above the circle and I told them dirt and gravel.  They weren’t planning on going up it, just to the circle and back home in southern California.

After we left them at the gas stop, they later caught up to us and passed us.  For some reason I wasn’t in the mood to go fast today.  Maybe tomorrow.  After all, before today I was in British Columbia and now I’m in Yukon Territories and the slate has been wiped clean.  It’s almost like someone took all the points off my drivers license and I can start building them up again.     :)

We easily found a room in Haines Junction and are turning in.  Lyle wants to make it to Fairbanks tomorrow and that is five hundred miles from here.  Another long day ahead!

Did I say ZUMO ROCKS ! !

Day 7 With a Little of Everything 486.7 Miles

Moving average was only 54.8 today.  We were slow.  And you’ll find out why in a minute. 

Today, we saw several animals, met new friends, experienced weather that we had not seen so far on this trip, encountered many road workers, got told there “were no rooms at the inn”, met even more new friends, saw ladies of the evening (didn’t talk to them though, and they weren’t the new friends we met!), What a busy day. 

Where to start?  Well, with our first new friends we met.  We were just going down the road (at our regular elevated speeds) and up over the hill some people were coming towards us and they wanted to meet us.  Now how they knew we were people they would want to meet just boggles my mind because they were at least a half mile ahead of us and coming towards us.  A real puzzle. 

Anyway, as soon as they saw us they put on these real bright lights they had and I knew right away that they wanted to meet us.  They even made a u-turn in the middle of the highway to come back and see us.  Figuring I would make it easy for them to meet us, I pulled over and waited for them to catch up.  It took a while but they were persistent and finally got to us. 

They got out of their car and asked us how we were doing and I told them we were doing fine and asked how were they doing.  They asked where we were from and where we were going and I told them and then they said a most peculiar thing.  They said “the speed limit on this highway is 100 kph and we clocked you doing 124.5 kph”. 

I was so thankful for that information I almost asked them if they would write out a document certifying that speed.  Thankfully, I didn’t say anything because they were so kind they had already planned on giving it to me. 

I did try to tell them that the reason we were going that speed was because Lyle was following me too fast.  I told them that if he hadn’t have been following so fast, I think we would have only been going 100kph.  They didn’t seem too interested in my explanation though so we took their silly papers and cranked the bikes up and did wheelies on down the road. 

After looking at the documents in my room later, I determined that what they gave me was a “faulty equipment” ticket that in the comments had the words “warning for speed”.  I am only guessing but I would say the faulty equipment they were referring to was my speedometer.  I’ll have them know Garmin is my speedometer and nothing is more accurate!

We saw three moose today.  One right by the side of the road and the others a little distance away.  We saw buffalo too but not on the road like the last time I was here.  We saw one small black bear cub off in the grass by himself and I saw another bigger one later on about twenty yards off the road.  When we were going by one of the lakes a stone sheep with a really small kid walked out in the road and just stood by a cliff.  Like the mom was saying, “go ahead junior, you can do it”.  He didn’t like that cliff.  Straight down from the road. 

We went through a pass today that was all dense fog.  I mean really dense!  We had to follow a truck through it and at times you couldn’t see the truck and then there were sections of the road where they had repaved some spots and had not painted the lines back in the middle.  I was getting really nervous on those sections as I could see the road right in front of the bike but didn’t know where the middle of the road was or whether I was going towards the drop offs on the side or not. 

Also a lot of rain today.  It started out bright and sunny and then developed into rain later in the day. 

Lyle got to ride across his first “grated iron” bridge today.  It wasn’t a bad one though.  Also, he got to ride through our first “construction zone” on the Alaska Highway.  It was dirt with a little mud.  Not too bad either. 

We were feeling our age a little bit and we stopped for gas at a little camp grounds along the highway.  While there we met a couple from Wichita, Kansas.  Now get this; they started out from Wichita nine weeks ago riding recumbent  trikes, both pulling a small trailer.  That’s a three wheel bicycle with two wheels in the front and one in the rear and you pedal it while sitting down like in a chair.  NINE WEEKS!  You can google and see how far it is from Wichita to Cold River Camp in BC.  Unbelievable ! ! !.  So Lyle and I quit feeling our age right then as this couple were both older than we are by far!  Every time a person gets to thinking that they are doing something special, you meet someone who is truly doing something special.  Then you feel a little humbled. 

And finally to, what I know you’ve all been waiting for, the working girls.  Well, there is currently a forest fire going on north of Watson Lake and a lot of  fire fighters are in town and they have all the rooms booked so we couldn’t  get a room at the place we wanted to stay.  But, since we were there, we had a late lunch in their restaurant.  From our observations while having lunch, all the fire fighters coming to town, also brought in waves of working girls.  I don’t see the correlation, but I know those girls weren’t in Watson Lake last year when I was here.  And they certainly didn’t come to town because Lyle and I were passing through. 

There were even two of them out at the Sign Post Forest when I was putting up the Ozarks Country Living sign.  They seemed to be everywhere in Watson Lake. 

We finally found two rooms at a little camp grounds just north of Watson Lake.  The camp grounds is owned by a Czech who used to live in Praha about thirty years ago.  His name is Vlad (short for Vladimir).  He said “I used to live in Prague” and I corrected him by saying, “you used to live in Praha”.  He agreed that Praha is the correct name for what we gringos call Prague.  He’s just been living here so long he started talking like us. 

We took the last two rooms he had and turned in early.

Day 6 What a Sunny Day 423.1 Miles

Today started out bright and sunny and a little cool.  It stayed that way all day long. 

Today we made it to Dawson Creek.  The starting point of the original Alaska Highway.  We stopped at the “zero mile” marker and took the obligatory tourist shots.  Lyle by his motorcycle with the sign in the background and me with my bike and the sign in the background. 

Then we had lunch where I introduced Lyle to Tim Hortons.  For those of you who have never been to Canada before, Tim Hortons is considered a national treasure in Canada.  It’s sort of like a combination of Dunkin Donuts and Panera in the U.S.   Everyone in Canada loves Tim Hortons.  It was one of Sharon’s favorite places to eat when we lived in Toronto. 

If any of you are tracking my SPOT ME and you noticed that the signal stopped somewhere northwest of Dawson Creek and stayed in one place for a while, I have to tell you there must have been something wrong with the SPOT ME because we were riding BMW bikes and they would never be stopped in one spot for any length of time.  Especially not stopped because something came loose or quit working. 

In fact, when I get home I’m going to complain to the SPOT ME people about this problem.  The signal should be updated regularly and should never make it look like a person stopped somewhere for some reason ! @ ! !

For some reason (when I have more time tomorrow, I’ll figure out what the reason was and let you know) it took us longer to get to where we are than was anticipated.  It’s like the clocks just lost almost an hour somewhere.  Anyway, we made it to Pink Mountain (sort of like the Ava area, if you get my drift.  Why else would it be called “Pink” Mountain? )  

They have a restaurant here and we both had the specials.  I had spaghetti with meat sauce which filled a large dinner plate. Plus two LARGE pieces of texas toast.  I was able to finish half of one piece of bread and about 1/3 of the spaghetti.  WAY too much food for one person.  Lyle had a hamburger steak and one of his sides was pasta.   Well, his pasta was the very same spaghetti that I was having as my main course.  But he had enough spaghetti to feed two people.  He didn’t finish his mail either.  We just had to quit. 

We didn’t see a single critter along the way today.  I hope they’re out tomorrow.  Lyle and I agreed that if we can find a bear along the way, we’ll stop and I’ll get a picture of Lyle feeding the bear a piece of his famous jerky.  That promises to  be one great picture.   I won’t be able to compose the picture exactly right though as everything will have to be done while I’ll sitting on my running motorcycle with my hand on the clutch and the camera in the other hand. 

I’ve determined that I made my route incorrectly.  I used Garmin software and it must default to “bypass cities” mode.  This means that it never wants to take you through a city.  It will go miles around a city to bypass it.  That’s not all bad until you think about the fact that most gas stations are actually IN the city.  I’ll now have to program the Garmin manually to fix this.  We want to at least, go close to the cities. 

Tomorrow we head for Watson Lake (signpost city) and put up our real estate sign for all visitors to see.  Assuming they have time to look at all of the thousands of signs. 

There is no internet here at Pink Mountain so this won’t go out today.  Actually they do have internet, they just have HughesNet and it doesn’t happen to be working at the moment.  If I had brought my troubleshooting tools, I could offer to fix it for them.

Tomorrow is another long day so I’m off to  bed. 

Day 5 Nice! (Some of the time!) 995,9km

Had you going there for a minute, didn’t I?  Yes we had to switch to kilometers now since we’re in Canada.  It’s equal to 618.9 miles.  A long day and I’m really tired now. 

Moving average was only 60.9 since we’re now in Canada with its creeping speed limits.  We saw three different radar setups within the first two hours of getting across the border. 

I could write about a lot of things but I’m going to bed. 

I will say that I thought we were in the twilight zone going through Calgary today.  There were monster black clouds hanging over Calgary as we approached the city.  Just when I thought we were going to miss them in one direction or another, then the highway would turn directly into the black clouds.  You could see the rain coming down from those clouds for miles. 

Then just before we came into the rain, the road would turn again and head into a clear spot.  This happened maybe five times and by the time it was over we had “threaded the needle” though most of the storms and were on the North side of the city. 

But, we weren’t able to miss the last one and that brought another first for me.  Hail, while riding a motorcycle.  It was only BB size but still it was the real thing.  Along with the rain, it was another bad weather day for us. 

We were having dinner in the local DQ here in Whitecourt and an older guy asked us if we had the bikes from Missouri.  He said he was a minister, originally from Illinois, and used to live in Monet.  His wife always wanted to live near Branson.  Just another example of just how small this world is. 

I’m off to bed. 

Day 4 Nice! (Most of the time!) 578.7 Miles

When we started out from Spearfish, SD the weather was overcast and cold (balmy to Lyle) and later in the day the sun came out and it was looking nice.  Still cold, but nice looking weather.  It was probably in the mid 40’s or so.  It was cold enough that Lyle told me if it got any colder, he was going to have to put his jacket on.  A t-shirt was almost not enough. 

We stopped for lunch at a KFC near the Custer Battlefield.  It was not a nice experience.  Lyle said his mash potatoes and gravy should have been called “gravy and gravy”.  They didn’t have any coleslaw (too early in the day), And no ice “you can go over to the c-store and get some ice, they don’t mind”.  And the whole place was dirty. 

The area around the Custer Battlefield is mainly settled by “First Nation” people. 

The KFC had panhandlers on the corner with a sign saying, “need money for gas, trying to get home”.   They looked like they had been living under a bridge for several weeks.  And a large fifth wheel trailer that took up half the parking lot with a flat tire. 

When we were getting on the bikes to leave, a blonde walked by and said, “Pretty cold day to be riding” and Lyle said “It wouldn’t be with you setting on the back of my bike”.  The only problem was he didn’t say it loud enough for her to hear.  :)  I’m going to have to get him to speak up if he wants people to hear what he’s saying. 

As we approached Billings, Montana, we ran into more rain.  It seems like we just can’t get away from this front. 

And for all my OCD friends, don’t bother checking the SPOT ME web page to try and figure out how fast we were going.  I’ll save you the trouble.  We were going fast!

Well, we were going fast until we came up behind a Wyoming Highway Patrol car in the left lane running at exactly the speed limit.  I thought about passing him in the right lane but reconsidered. I didn’t want to have to waste time in a local jail trying to explain just why I wanted to pass a patrol car running at the speed limit. 

The most exciting part of the day came when we got north of Billings, Montana and came to highway 12.  Last year when I was at that point, there was a thunderstorm coming from the west so I went on an east loop to the north to miss the storm.  This time Lyle wanted to go west instead so off we went. 

We came to highway 191 and discovered a very large sign that said, “motorcycle rider advisory, dirt road, please use an alternate route.  Well, I thought about going down the road to see just how bad it was but then when we stopped at a convenience store, they said the state was widening the highway and the detour just went way out in a pasture to bypass the construction.  They said it was all mud!

We ended up going even further west to find an alternative route.  We ended up on highway 89 which takes you around and through the Little Belt mountains for about 60 miles.  What an experience!.  It would have been a perfect ride on a warm day when the roads were dry.  But when we went on it, there was rain, and snow and even colder temperatures.  I thought any minute we were going to round a turn and there would be snow on the road. 

But we made it to Great Falls, Montana and got a room at the Motel 6.

Oh, I almost forgot, when we got on highway 12 and started east going towards highway 89, we hadn’t gone very far when all of a sudden,  WHAP!  A fairly large bird of some kind (it was black with some white under the wings) hit me smack in the middle of my windshield.  I didn’t even have time to blink, it was so quick.  Lyle said he could see it going towards me but I didn’t see anything until it hit the windshield.  It didn’t break anything so we continued on. I would have stopped to take a picture of the dead bird but we had just passed a large tree trimming truck at a high rate of speed and I didn’t want them to get in front of us again.  

Our “moving average” today was only 64.7 mph.  I guess the number went down because we had to go so slow in the Little Belt mountains.  Otherwise, I think our moving average would be closer to 80 mph.  :)  Only kidding Sharon!!!  Our driving time (or moving time) was 8 hours 56 minutes.  Considering all the rain we saw today, I think that was pretty good.  Total elapsed time was 13 hours and 21 minutes.  A long day!  And I’m tired and going to bed. 

Day 3 Long Miles 0.0 miles

Yes, today we traveled from Spearfish, SD to Spearfish, SD.  The official release statement for publication states that we were stranded here by a snow storm in the area of our next destination, Billings, Montana.  While the story is a little more complicated than that, “that’s our story and we’re sticking to it”. 

We were starting out of town and ran across a couple of Harleys stranded along the side of the road and we decided to tow them back to town.  When we got back to town, they were so happy and excited because they said their Harleys had never gone that fast before. 

Anyway, our plan tomorrow is to check with the Montana Highway Patrol and see what the road conditions are before leaving.  Hopefully, the storm has moved off to the east by the time we leave here. 

Day 2 _A Much Better Day ! 540.3 Miles

But only if you like to start your riding day in the rain and also end it in the rain.  I was in a much better mood today as I had a great nights sleep.  No chainsaws in evidence anywhere!!!

Lyle and I got a much earlier start this morning.  We met for breakfast at 6am and had a muffin and then we were on our way.  In the rain!  Lyle elected to start the day without his insert in his Kilimanjaro jacket.  Bad Plan!

As I had forgotten my waterproof riding gloves, we made a quick stop in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at the Honda shop and we both bought a pair.  Then it was on to the west, still in the rain. 

At a gas stop in western SD, we met another rider coming from the west.  When he took off his helmet, we were surprised by the fact that he was a she.  I’m going to guess she was around 45 or so and riding a sport bike.  She said she had just come from the badlands area and was headed south.  She was decked out with all the right gear and she was alone.  I guess I’m still old fashioned (after all, I am old) as I was surprised that a woman her age would be out riding a motorcycle on a day like this, all by herself.  Nothing wrong with that picture at all but it took me by surprise.  Lyle too.  It reminded me of Margaret from Tasmania.  I think Lyle wanted to ask her out on a date but he was embarrassed because I was there.  

To sum up the day, it was rain, at times fairly hard, a little sun (maybe a half  hour in the middle of South Dakota, but still very cold) and temperatures in the low forties and strong winds most of the day.  There was probably two hours of riding when there wasn’t rain.  Plus, when we got to the western end of South Dakota the thick fog moved in.  I was COLD the whole day. 

Lyle summed up his observations of the day so:

“I can’t believe how long it took to get across South Dakota going 90 miles an hour!”

In case you’re one of my OCD friends and you happen to check the mileage between Sloan, IA and Spearfish, SD and see that it is less than 540.3 miles, well, I’m here to tell you that being the macho man I am, I don’t always do what Garmin Girl tells me.  I missed a turn and we had to backtrack a bit :)

 

If you want to track my SPOT ME, you can go to:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0d6tlvZyZMhlgIBFzq6aGNktknIb9CyHk

Day 1 of the Road Trip (499.1 Miles)

Made it as far as Sloan, Iowa, home of the WinneVegas Casino.  I don’t know how we did it either.  I was so tired the whole way.  I only got about three hours of sleep last night due to the “chain sawing” going on in my bedroom. 

I don’t really have anything to report as I was too tired to notice much of anything.  I’m amazed we made it through Kansas City and Council Bluffs.  Give all the credit to Garmin Girl.  I had to stop twice to take a nap or I was going to fall off the bike I was so tired. 

Lyle forgot to bring any sunscreen and at the end of the day he looked a little red even with his helmet on.  He said he was also tired but he couldn’t have been near as tired as I am.  It was pretty hot for a good part of the way and he ended up taking his jacket off and riding in his t-shirt. 

The bikes did well.  Mine averaged right at 40 miles per gallon for the entire way.  I don’t think Lyle kept track of his. 

Garmin Girl says we traveled 499.6 miles but my odometer says we only went 457 miles.  One of them is wrong.  My money is on the odometer on bike being wrong.  Garmin Girl is much too smart to make an error like that. 

Our overall speed was 50.1mph and our moving average was 65.2mph.  In case you were wondering.  That means we must have been moving a lot faster than 65 most of the time. 

I hope I got everyones email address added to the blog.  If I didn’t get your email in there and you aren’t getting these updates, then let me know :)

We’re supposed to meet for breakfast at 6am tomorrow so I’m going to bed.

We stopped for lunch in Belton at the Wendys.  But Sharon already knew that without me telling her.  Plus, if you were tracking us on the SPOT ME web page, you saw that we were stopped for a while in Belton. 

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.  I’m off to bed.

In case you missed it, this is the web page for tracking:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/gogl.jsp?glId=0d6tlvZyZMhlgIBFzq6aGNktknIb9CyHk

New Tires

I’ve put the new tires on both our bikes now and I think all that is left is to pack the bikes and away we go.  I put new front brakes on mine and Lyles bike at the same time and new rear brakes on mine. 

The tire changes went fairly smoothly.  I had problems seating the bead on one tire and, though I hate to admit it, I had to take it down to the local tire changer to get a lesson in seating beads.  He had it seated in about ten seconds and I took away two pearls of wisdom from that.  One is to use LOTS of soapy water and two, take the valve stem “innards” out when trying to seat the bead.  It helps the air go in faster which is what you need to start the whole process.  And, he didn’t charge me any thing for the lesson. 

While doing the tire changes here in my shed wasn’t super tough, I would really hate to try that on the side of the road somewhere North of the Arctic Circle.  It would not be easy at all!!

For my blog this year I’m using a new tool from Microsoft called “Windows Live Writer” to post to the blog.  I had a problem last year when trying to post to the blog when I didn’t have Internet Access.  The Google blogging  tool doesn’t have the capability to post to their blog in “offline” mode.  Using Live Writer, I should have that capability.  In fact, I’m testing Live Writer with this entry.  We’ll see how well it works. 

This trip I’m also taking along a “SPOT ME” device so friends and family can track my progress (or lack thereof, depending on the weather) while I’m traveling.  It works off the satellite system rather than cell towers so it will work anywhere in the world.  It only has four buttons on it.  An on/off button and a button that when you push it, it automatically sends an email to anyone you have set up in the system that basically says “I’m ok and here is where I am”. 

The next button when pushed, causes a service call to be sent to the nearest tow/service center to where you are, telling them that you are broke down and exactly where you are. 

The final button when pushed sends a “distress call” to the nearest 911 center to your current position that says, “I need an ambulance (or helicopter, depending on exactly where you are) right now and it gives them your exact location.  Hopefully, that button will show no usage at all when I return home. 

It can also be set to “track me” mode (which I will be doing once we get started) and the device sends out a marker beacon to the home system every ten minutes.  That beacon gives your exact position and gives a link that when clicked, brings up a Google map showing where you are.  The system holds these beacons for ten days and then deletes them.  So, you can see where I’ve been for the last two weeks at ten minute intervals. 

I’m telling everyone that if they are tracking me and I seem to be going down a highway in Alaska somewhere and then all of a sudden the signal starts moving off at right angles to the road, there is a possibility that my “SPOT ME” device has been eaten by a bear!  Then, they can track the bear until the batteries go dead!

Departure Time Approaches

I've completed most of my "pre-flight" tasks and in the final stretch. I've changed out my driving lights for a larger type which, hopefully, will last longer then the last set. The cheaper halogen lights from China are just about worthless. When I checked them after the return from Alaska last year, they were both burned out.  

I still don't have my cruise control installed and I'm not sure if I'll have the time to do it before I leave. I really need it for the highway driving but it is extremely difficult to install on the BMW R1150GS. I'll make one more attempt to make the time to try the installation.  

Lyle and I went over to Misty Mountain Sheepskin Company near Branson last week and we both came away with black shorthair sheepskin seat covers for our GSes. Lyle is already sure he is going to like his but I still have reservations. It seems like it changes my seating position slightly and I'm not sure how that will play out over long distances.  

While we were at the sheepskin company I noticed he has some pictures and a map of one riders travels and I asked him about it. He said that was a guy he sold a sheepskin to that when he came back from his trip he gave him the pictures and maps to hang on his shop wall. It turns out this guy from West Plains, Missouri (about 40 miles SouthEast of here) took a trip that went from West Plains to Deadhorse Alaska back to West Plains then to the Northern tip of Maine and back and then to Key West and back. This is quite the trip in itself but the most amazing part of it is that the guy did all of this on a 1948 Harley Davidson Knucklehead motorcycle he had restored to original condition. As any Harley owner will tell you (if they have ever owned one of these motorcycles) it was very hard back in the '50s to go more than 100 miles on one of these bikes without having to do some type of work on it before you got back home.  

Ed Young here in Mountain Grove tells me about how he would work on his knucklehead all week long so he could ride it on the weekend and then start all over again the next Monday. For someone to ride one of these for, what must have been, over twenty thousand miles, borders on the unbelievable. I'd like to know how many parts he used during that trip.  

It looks like we'll both be making the trip on Michelen Anakee II tires. This is a new version of the old Anakee on-road/off-road tire and it's supposed to have greatly increased tread life. We'll see. I've measured the tread of the new tires and they are 10/32 on the rear and 6/32 on the front. When we get to Fairbanks I'll check it again and see how much wear we got in that 4,000 miles or so.  

We don't have a firm route yet and we may just "wing it". Generally, we are thinking about going up the same way I went last year through South Dakota, Wyoming, and crossing into Canada at the Sweetgrass border crossing. Then up the "Eastern" route through Canada to Alaska. Coming back we will probably do the "Western" route back to the U.S. into Washington state and down into Oregon before turning back towards Missouri. I believe we will be around 11,000 miles by the time we get home. Hopefully, on one set of tires. That could be pushing it and we'll have to watch the treadwear pretty close.  

Departure date is either the 5th or 6th of June.  

Plans

I did this last year, all the way to Prudhoe Bay.  My brother-in-law, Lyle wanted to go with me last year but couldn't get off work.  He's retiring this year and he's turning 65 at the same time.  Is that reason enough to head out on an adventure?  

I can't help but think of the movie "Wild Hogs".  I'll have to see about getting an Apple tat!

As our planning develops, I'll add more info.  

I just hope the weather is better this year than last.  That was almost too much.  Rain, rain, more rain.  Mud, mud, more mud.